


Trouble Takes Trouble to Find You

by Etnoe



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Small Town, M/M, Supernatural Elements, Threats of Violence, Weirdness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-06-25
Packaged: 2019-05-13 17:12:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14752958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etnoe/pseuds/Etnoe
Summary: There's just something about Tavros that makes people think he ought to be dead. Some want to commit the deed, and some would only be innocent (but unsurprised!) witnesses. It's going to take some trying to escape that attitude in this lovely, strange, violent little town...(And then there's the shadow.)





	Trouble Takes Trouble to Find You

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a [prompt at comment-fic](https://comment-fic.livejournal.com/908079.html?thread=107427631#t107427631):
> 
> Any, any
> 
> He was friendly and kind, he was honest and willin'.  
> But a feller folks lots of times felt just like killin'  
> \- Bruce Kiskaddon, "He Didn't Belong"

* * *

 

Tavros Nitram was destined for a kicking, a licking, a beat-down, a full-body breaking.

First, though, for bird-feeding. That was how his neighbours knew him: A sight that accompanied the songbird chatter of the pre-dawn - and occasionally, when the wheels of his chair betrayed him on the bedewed grass, as an additional medley of sound, clattering with a shout or two, followed by whispered apologies that seemed even louder.

The dim night below a single moon and the bright benevolence of a day under a pale sun were both things Tavros enjoyed, so he got to know people around his neighbourhood whichever hours they preferred for their activities. In the hungry and affectionate company of chirping birds, bold squirrels, and easily swayed moths, Tavros was always waving to those who passed his home while out and about for the night, and to those who stepped out of their own homes to begin their days.

He would converse with anyone who was (or seemed to be) of a mind to do so. When he could offer help, he'd promise at length to try (what he hoped they, too, would be willing to call) his best. When there was gossip, he would participate with glee (to the extent that he would mention seemed okay as far as the potential feelings of the ones being gossiped about, if they ever found out that they were the subject of discussion). On receiving suggestions of strife-training together sometime, he would offer to cheer participants on enthusiastically instead, or ask if the competition might include games or slam poetry (as he had to admit, he wasn't much of one for fighting).

Routine was his mistake. Plenty of people knew that routine of his in its year-in, year-out rhythm, had rolled their eyes and shaken their horns in irritation to witness it. Tavros started with the birds, then got absorbed in early-morning work in his vegetable and herb gardens, and then... The rest didn't matter. Working outside, with his attention fixed on a task - convincing a damn bunny rabbit to quit getting at his lettuces, what a sap! what a waste of space! - his back was to the street, to the gate, to his attackers. That well-known moment was everything they'd come down the street for in their snickering, swaggering cluster.

As it turned out, _their_ mistake was in conflating the fact that he didn't like to fight with the idea that he couldn't fight.

Tavros reacted as if he were back on Alternia - as if, in his panic, he was once again back to the desperate struggle of trying to get off of Alternia. There were too many of them for Tavros to fend off completely, though, since he didn't carry many daggerlances on him. Besides, he was surprised (though not as surprised as the attackers when the neighbourhood's dogs, cats, chickens, goats, pigs, and yes, that same rambunctious bunny rabbit, all joined in the fight). Tavros raced away as faces he knew well groaned and yelled behind him.

 

"You don't deserve to die!" Aradia said. "Remember that, and don't give in to any ideas anyone else has on the subject!"

Death hadn't been where Tavros thought the conversation was going. Law enforcement? Revenge? Hiding away for a while, now, that seemed like a great solution.

The thing was: Aradia, as a rule, knew what she was talking about. When she didn't, she'd tell you so, and then try to find out and most likely succeed.

He looked at her cheery, urgent, knowledgeable expression, and nodded. The urgency became even brighter cheer, and there was at least time to have lunch before Aradia's phone rang, and she was asked about if she'd seen that one good friend of hers around today.

 

"I can't really imagine that you'll make it," said Kanaya, critically, though her smile was welcoming.

 

"To die will be an awfully big adventure!" Terezi quoted, and waited with interest for a reaction; she'd never once told him over the course of their friendship that she'd watched _Pupa Pan_ , just teased him, often, when he mentioned his appreciation for the story. "If you're in trouble, try swinging by again, if you feel like it! I might help if I'm here." She shrugged broadly. "I might not!"

 

Karkat was, this once, _succinct_ : "Fuck off," and an impatient gesture out towards the street. He at least did nothing to stop Tavros from leaving by a door at the back of his hive, instead, though he did roll his eyes.

 

"You're going to die. Obvious, right?" said Sollux. "But soon, is what I mean. Bye, bro! make your peace! I refuse to get invested while my fucked-up brain says I don't have to! Enjoy your useless warning and get the fuck out!"

 

Jade, in as nice a way as possible while being so blatantly impatient at his presence, with exaggerated movements conveying her intentions, started loading her shotgun.

 

"Well, _I_ like you!" Nepeta said with genuine distress, and let him stay at her hive a while to throw everyone off track, but the cat allergies kicked in something awful.

 

And then there was the shadow.

 

These things happened. According to the majority of Earth's population, they shouldn't, but Tavros had the advantage (perhaps) of knowing Aradia and Sollux. Ghosts, they could easily explain so that you barely worried about them, or with the tricky ones, get the ghosts to explain themselves. Kanaya told stories of the desert where she used to live before moving into town, about bodiless cries that tried to lure you away from your water, and statues that were very noncommittal in their approach to reality, and rotting bodies that would not lie still, and shadows - fragments of shadows, with nothing to cast them whole in the first place - that squirmed towards any sign of life and then tried to cling.

This shadow, at least, looked as if it was whole on its own, and he doubted it had got lost; it had purpose in its movements. Unfortunately, the purpose was to follow him.

If it got too close and Tavros realised that he saw something strange from the corner of his eye, it backed away until the shadow was lost in another shadow. It melted into the stark midday knot of a cluster of trees and bushes in Main Street Park as he parted wincingly with money for a hot dog, reappeared behind a partially broken wall halfway down the block when Tavros called a cat closer for a chat, and it quite possibly vanished under a poorly parked van when he was racing away from pursuit once again.

Predators, Tavros knew, were more than happy to follow prey that got cut off from the herd. He thought of his friends, which led to thinking about the one he hadn't yet reached out to for shelter and protection.

He would rather face a lot of other things before he'd face Vriska.

The next time he went for takeaway at the fastest place he knew of outside the town centre, he bought two milkshakes along with his food. One chocolate with sprinkles and one strawberry with a chocolate bar - egalitarian. It was sunset, when edges were indistinct and dimmed. He went outside to the part of the parking lot where the staff vehicles stood, because those were unlikely to move any time soon and provided hi with a screen. He got halfway through his chocolate milkshake.

 

"Hey, motherfucker. 'Sup," said the shadow, and Tavros's smile froze at the combination of an insult and a friendly tone; he had had regrettably consistent experiences of that kind of thing.

But then, despite his misgivings, the shadow hung back. It was around the corner, on the side of the restaurant where a neighbouring building, a former theatre unused for the past few months, cast more ready shadows for use. The tip of a shoe poked into the light that reached from the street side of the parking lot, and was hastily drawn back.

"'Sup!" Tavros spoke hurriedly when it occurred to him that he might be rude in his hesitance. "That's a friendly gesture, usually, and I appreciate it, and as such would like to return it to you in the same spirit, if ... that's the spirit you were going for." He waved.

"There's no display of brass knuckles on that hand you're up and showing there. If we're going to be all practically speaking on the matter of how it goes down between us, that plain visible fact would up and be good enough for a motherfucker like me."

"If we're going to be circuitously speaking, as well, then being prepared, would be in your best interests. When it comes to that, I am your man, bro!"

A pause followed that charged the air with a different energy. Days of being chased had tuned Tavros's instincts, and he didn't grow nervous, but he did become more alert as he tried to figure out the way this conversation was going. He continued to feel that he could stay calm (mostly) when the shadow emerged from itself, and turned out to be a troll of about Tavros's age.

One look and it was clear that he had taken a slicing, a shooting, a _chewing_ , a booting.

He seemed to have come into the light specifically to make it clear that he was raising his eyebrows. "A brother comes on strong, huh?" he said. He set elevator eyes on Tavros from sandals to horns. Oh _no_ , violence always followed when that happened.

Again his misgivings were, thankfully, misaimed. Tentative smiles were in no way a thing he feared. OK, except for how they pulled at the scars of a very scarred face so that they caught the eye even more - but still. Tentativeness. In smile format. Easy things to handle.

"That kind of statement, puts a light on certain things ... that I did not intend to be there, as they are actions that I took only with an intention of having non-violent discourse happen, specifically between us. So that we could get to know each other better. And actually, it's one action especially, that I would appreciate not having misconstrued... I got you a milkshake."

Shadow guy liked strawberry flavour and an added chocolate just fine. He finished his full milkshake as fast as Tavros finished the other half of his own.

"Can't even motherfuckin' slurp them last sweet dregs," the shadow guy said, looking soulfully upon his takeaway cup and straw. Tavros was about to encourage him to go for it - their circumstances, both to begin with, and after all, were not formal! - when the guy put down the milkshake, stood, and took a few steps away from the wall. Then he ran towards it, and those few steps' worth of momentum allowed him to grab the edge of the restaurant's roof, and strength got him the rest of the way up.

He was a shadow again, due to the way the roof was slightly tilted and the neighbouring building loomed tall, casting down darkness. "Hey, friend?" The disembodied voice was even more tentative. "You coming all on up here? If you've got a mind to, I mean, before anybody who might be of intent to all strike out after you has the time to up and finish with making their order beneath this roof here, and those motherfuckers come out to smoke a cigarette as they get their wait on for sustenance."

"That ... is curiously, and also worryingly, in several ways ... specific..."

"Hunger lies at base of many things, bro," the shadow whispered. "Like for burgers, and all. They do make bitchtits milkshakes up in here, too, as I have learned of latest." Shadows, as a rule, did not have nice smiles, but it was clear that he did try.

Tavros took the extended hand that emerged from the indistinct darkness, and made it up to the roof with that help and his own show of considerable upper-body strength. The shadow helped with getting him to arrange himself without sliding right off the roof, then had an awkward time hauling his wheelchair up and getting it wedged behind a vent outlet that spewed steam and the cloying scent of frying food. Throughout, the guy from the shadows was earnestly absent in listening to his apologies, as if they barely registered. When all that was done, they lay up there practically in comfort.

Silent, they listened to the voices that rose shortly afterwards, right from the spot where the two of them had been sitting. The voices sounded a little to a lot drunk, talking of idle frustrations and idle jokes, among them, the subject of Tavros Nitram.

He tucked his arms around himself on hearing his name, and the shadow guy pointed at him. _You_?

Tavros nodded with a small motion, so his horns wouldn't scrape anything. _That is, me, and I am struggling not to use the adverb, 'regrettably', except that my expression does probably convey that, even if I am not using words at present, due to having realised that my whispers are still actually, loud._

The shadow squinted at him, then nodded too.

And then, once the owners of the voices left and there was silence from below ... the two of them stargazed.

There were worlds up there, Alternia and kinder ones, and guiding light. There were satellites up there, helping people speak in what sometimes seemed a better way than to look each other in the face, and in the next instant look past each other anyway. Colours they couldn't see, sounds they couldn't hear - although the shadow-guy thought he might give it a shot, someday. Tavros confessed daringly to the fact that he liked to look for pictures in clouds, and especially clouds like the ones above them that curled and piled up so appealingly in unfelt gales, and the shadow-guy got excited enough that it was Tavros's turn to prevent him slipping off the roof.

By the time they got tired enough that the cold wouldn't be ignored any longer, and there were more shadows down on the ground to make use of, Tavros could not have been more relieved about the hand resting on his shoulders as they crossed the parking lot. He smiled up at his new friend as often as his tendency to get ridiculously shy allowed him to.

"Shouldn't ought to be two of us," the shadow-guy whispered to him as they travelled the town. "There's one alone should bear the burden, is how I'm feeling this matter out within me. Judas goat, lead the darkness by the nose to where its slaughter be. But here's you, all brightness in demeanour? Bro, something went wrong in the surest way. How is it that you could deserve the detestation, the eat-you-whole of a curse?"

"We're going towards the fancy side of town," Tavros said. Partly he liked to think of himself as a practical person, though with flights of fancy, and wished to lead the conversation away from awkward questions; partly he was wondering if it was impossible to escape Vriska, after all.

"Could be ... I could maybe ... help ..." The shadow guy's posture gained confidence in an admirable way, and he kept his voice down with what seemed to be an almighty effort. "Bro. There is up and being shit that _I_ could up and _do_ for as to make this all be the way it motherfucking _ought_ for you. There's people on whose doors I could knock, and that's how I'm going to be doing it now. There's help to be asked. We're going to up and get it."


End file.
